Koshin Paley Ellison, MFA, LMSW, DMIN

[course/subject] Contemplative Care

Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison, MFA, LMSW, DMIN, is an author, Zen teacher, Jungian psychotherapist, and Certified Chaplaincy Educator. After more than a decade as a chaplain and psychotherapist, Koshin co-founded the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care (NYZC for short). The non-profit center offers contemplative approaches to care through education, personal caregiving, and Zen practice. Today, New York Zen Center’s methodologies are internationally recognized—and have touched the lives of tens of thousands of individuals.

Koshin is a renowned thought leader in contemplative care; his work has been featured in the New York Times, PBS, and Tricycle, among other publications. He is the author of Wholehearted: Slow Down, Help Out, Wake Up (Wisdom Publications, 2019). And the co-editor of Awake at the Bedside: Contemplative Teachings on Palliative and End of Life Care (Wisdom Publications, 2016).

Koshin began his formal Zen training in 1987, and he is a recognized Soto Zen Teacher by the American Zen Teachers Association, White Plum Asanga, and Soto Zen Buddhist Association. He serves on the Board of Directors at the Soto Zen Buddhist Association, New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care, and Barre Center for Buddhist Studies.

He has completed six years of training at the Jungian Psychoanalytic Association as well as clinical contemplative training at both Mount Sinai Beth Israel Medical Center and New York

Presbyterian Medical Center. He is an ACPE Certified Educator, chaplain, and Jungian psychotherapist.

Academic Appointments

Koshin has served as the co-director of Contemplative Care Services for the Department of Integrative Medicine and as the chaplaincy supervisor for the Pain and Palliative Care Department at Mount Sinai Beth Israel Medical Center, where he also served on the Medical Ethics Committee.

He is currently on the faculty of the University of Arizona Medical School’s Center for Integrative Medicine’s Integrative Medicine Fellowship, on Faculty of the Integrative Medicine Fellowship of the Academy of Integrative Health and Medicine, and he is a visiting professor at the McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics, of the University of Texas Health Science Center of Houston Medical School.